The Waking Engine

The late Cooper, once of New York City, is surprised to find death a temporary condition, each life a brief stop in a nearly endless chain of existence. He awakens from his brief demise in the vast and ancient City Unspoken, a community dominated by cruel elites, where a fortunate few may perhaps find total oblivion. Marooned in the decaying city, surrounded by debauched Death Boys and Charnel Girls, Cooper, who has only died once, finds himself a curiosity in a realm where death itself rarely offers final release. Edison’s rambling secondary-world science fantasy tale, firmly anchored in the more amoral end of the New Weird, plays out in lavish prose, meandering through squalid slums and grand palaces, more interested in tourism than plot. The characters don’t object much to sadism and brutality, save when they do not themselves get to dole it out; readers who dislike graphic depictions of casual beatings may want to give this one a pass. (Feb.)